The long-term objectives of this project are to use the data of comparative neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neuropsychology to: (1) reconstruct the evolutionary history of the visual system: and (2) understand the relationship between structure and function within the visual system. The rationale for studying visual information processing in the nervous systems of non-mammalian vertebrates is that by understanding the general mechanisms of such processing, common to amniotes (and perhaps all vertebrates), we may gain insights in mechanisms of vision in humans that might not otherwise be available from experiments limited to the traditional subjects of such research, i.e., rats, cats and monkeys. The subjects of this research are pigeons, because these birds are highly specialized for vision. The first phase of the research is to use the techniques of neurophysiology to study differences in conduction time and the way in which visual informtion are processed in the major pathways of the visual system. The second phase is to continue our anatomical investigations of the cell populations that comprise the avian visual system. The third phase is to use the techniques of animal psychophysics and sensory scaling to describe the effects of selective lesions in these cell groups. The broad goal is to unravel the mechanisms of deficit and sparing after visual system injury by using behavioral tests of sensory capacity, attention, perception and information processing and relating these data to the anatomy and physiology of the visual system.